How can I modify pasted text?

Question

Is it possible to intercept and modify text that gets pasted into a textarea?

If intercepting isn't possible, can I modify it after being pasted? (Without modifying the already present text in the textarea.)

Answer 1

Maybe intercept keypresses, to know when CTRL+C is pressed, cache current text, then at CTRL+C's keyup, check current value against cached one, with simple text processing you can know the new text, and do whatever you want with, and update accordingly.

Answer 2

The best way I know of how to do this is to wait for the content to the text field to be pasted then wait for a keyup or a keydown trigger. This is shown in the code below:

<script language="javascript">

function testfunction()
{

 // This function will execute whenever the content of 

}
</script>

<textarea onkeyup="testfunction()" onkeydown="testfunction()"></textarea>

If you want to monitor a textarea for any changes, the following code would do that. It checks the value of the textarea every 1/10th of a second for any updates.

<textarea id="testfield"></textarea>

<script language="javascript">

var textarea = document.getElementById('testfield');
var textval = '';

function monitor()
{

 if(textval != textarea.value)
 {

  textval = textarea.value;
  testfunction();

 }

 setTimeout('monitor()', 100);

}

function testfunction()
{

 // This function will get executed whenever the value of the text area is altered (at most within 1/10th of a second)

}

monitor();
</script>

In both cases, you can modify the value of the textarea when testfunction() then update the value of the textarea with the updated value.

Answer 3

With jQuery:

    jQuery(function($){
      $('#your_element').bind('paste', function(event){
        event.preventDefault();
        var clipboardData = event.originalEvent.clipboardData.getData('text/plain');
        console.log(clipboardData);
      }); 
     }      
    });

Works in IE and Webkit. With Firefox you might have to use this:

http://intridea.com/2007/12/16/faking-onpaste-in-firefox?blog=company